The 20th anniversary of this journal is a good reason to glance back at developments with restorative justice for children and young people. Can we say that restorative youth justice has become mature? Some core events and articles about developments in Belgium, the Netherlands and elsewhere are discussed, paying attention to young suspects as well as victims. Subsequently, the embedding of restorative justice in youth laws is discussed. Finally, the article focuses on the question what should be done to improve the implementation into an effective, child friendly and ‘rights based’ youth sanction model.

Whereas the starting point of victimisation is clearly marked by a co-occurence of harm and wrong, the end of victimhood is not as straightforward. What is more, because victimisation is a social construct, the label of ‘victim’ is established in social interaction, meaning that third party observers have a role in the understanding of the (limits of) victimisation. In this article, I suggest that third party observers may understand attempts at restorative justice, more specifically, an apology, as an indicator of recovery of the victim. If this is true, they may expect the victim to decrease emotional display that signals victimisation after receiving an apology. If the victim continues to display similar signals of victimisation, this may result in negative victim-oriented responses. In an exploratory repeated measures vignette study, I show that third party observers evaluate the victim less positively after the victim received an apology than before they received this apology. The results imply that in understanding the (limits of) victimhood, we should consider the dynamics between victim and offender but also a broader circle of third-party observers. This is also important for restorative justice.

The apologies offered by young offenders in restorative justice conferences are often of poor quality. In this article the difficulties that accompany the offering of excuses are discussed. Offenders sometimes lack the language skills to pronounce an adequate apology, are anxious or insecure or believe that they have not been treated fairly. The mediation setting itself also has effects: sometimes perpetrators feel intimidated and feel compelled to say something that resembles an excuse. A related problem is that the perceptions about the sincerity of the apology can vary considerably. This perception-mismatch also occurs among victims: what one victim considers sincere is ‘fake’ for another. Many people
– also advocates of restorative justice – trust that the offender will offer a sincere apology, without realizing that this is not self-evident in a thorny confrontation setting. This article aims to temper this sincerity-expectation.

Restorative justice has evolved from an unknown concept towards a model that is considered world-wide when it comes to changes in the penal and youth justice sector. The restorative model expands towards handling conflicts in other areas, such as neighbourhoods, business, welfare issues, family matters and behavioural problems in schools. This article deals with the latter. Restorative practices are based upon an open and respectful dialogue, which presupposes certain attitudes and capacities. The article looks into possible risks, but especially the chances restorative practices in schools can offer for socially vulnerable youth.

This article describes the European research project ALTERNATIVE, which studies the possible implementation of restorative justice approaches in intercultural conflicts. Besides theoretical research into concepts such as justice, security, conflict (transformation) and restorative justice, action-research was implemented in four diverse intercultural settings (Austria, Hungary, Serbia and Northern Ireland). In order to compare those settings, an innovative comparative research method was developed through which the various realities are ‘thickly described’ within evaluation grids. The article describes the different aspects of the research and reflects upon the question whether a more broad understanding of restorative justice, surpassing the judicial sector and aspects, is emerging.

This article provides data about qualitative and quantitative research that was executed in juvenile detention centres in The Netherlands in the framework of the EU-funded Restorative Justice in Europe project. The results of a survey amongst 75 staff members are presented. Special attention is paid to the restorative handling of internal conflicts and crimes within the detention centre. Restorative Justice Nederland, executing this research, also developed a self-assessment tool for prisons, the Organisational Maturity Grid Restorative Practices, that can be used to assess how ‘mature’ restorative practices are within an organisation. Based on this maturity grid and the data of the research advice is provided on how restorative practices within juvenile detention centres can be brought to the next level.

Utrecht, the fourth largest city of The Netherlands, is addressing resolving social conflict by promoting schools to adhere to the Peaceful School Program and civilians and professionals to join the Peaceful Neighborhood Program. The Peaceful School Program is designed to address problematic behavior of youth in primary, secondary and high school education and evolved into a democratic and participatory citizenship program. The Peaceful Neighborhood Program is involving important organizations that are active within the neighborhood, members of the community and stake-holders to adapt peaceful attitudes in daily life, including a mind-set that addresses conflicts by resolving them (together).
These two programs are in the process of ‘conquering’ the whole of the city of Utrecht and every single neighborhood. The so-called Utrecht Model for Mediation is supporting these Peaceful Programs, through empowering citizens and professional to enhance their ‘peaceful skills’ and skills for conflict resolution. Citizens and professionals are being trained to develop this mindset. The Utrecht Model for Mediation is organizing a community of mediators that can be of help. A pool of volunteer mediators is being formed to help organizations, professionals, parents, students and members of the community in case of problems, tensions, problematic behavior of youth groups, etcetera. Professional mediators intervene in case of escalated conflicts and penal cases.

The authors summarize the empirical findings with regard to restorative justice and crime prevention as presented in the report of the European project on the matter at hand. With regard to the offender, they studied empirical research on the reduction of recidivism. Data refer to characteristics of the offender, the view of the offender with regard to the restorative process, characteristics of the communication processes and the type of offence as influencing factors. Results in general seem to be quite positive, although there are some cases when recidivism is worse in comparison to the traditional justice process. Crawford indicates how preventative effects for the victims can be taken into account – the researchers refer to the different effects depending on the type of crime and characteristics of the victim; satisfaction, re-victimisation and post-traumatic symptoms; and the prevention of revenge. With regard to the societal preventative effects, research on restorative justice seems to be restricted to the theoretical level: empirical research in this regard is lacking.

This article departs from a crime prevention perspective following the definition of crime prevention as adopted by the European Union Crime Prevention Network (EUCPN). This approach handles a broad notion of community involvement in crime prevention, including non-judicial measures and models of intervention. Through its participatory approaches, restorative justice has the potential of mobilising and reinforcing social capital and, therefore, of contributing to effective crime prevention and control. The community oriented approach is illustrated by the model of crime prevention and its possible connection to restorative justice as being developed in Hungary and promoted through various actions of the EUCPN.

In this article, the authors summarize some important methodological problems that may be encountered when studying the crime preventative effects of restorative justice. Studies mostly focus on tertiary preventative effects, namely the reduction of recidivism. Empirical research is in that regard mainly dealing with the effects of victim-offender mediation and conferencing practices. Some problems include the definitional issue (what can be considered as a restorative justice intervention?), the (quasi-)experimental design, the small size of samples and issues of comparability between different studies due to differences in e.g. follow-period or criteria for measuring recidivism.

This article gives a complete and detailed overview of research evaluations and outcomes of restorative justice projects in the Netherlands over the past decades. It involves developments where clearly restorative justice inspiration was visible. The author describes restorative practices with juveniles and the so-called project ‘Herstelbemiddeling’ (restorative mediation) that started in the nineties. Most evaluations had positive outcomes, but nevertheless there was no continuation from the political side. The author also examines the introduction of the country wide ‘victim-offender conversations’ which are carried out by the national victim support organization. Although this choice is justified because of the vulnerability of some victims and the chance of revictimisation, the author questions if victim organizations can really - in the best interests of the victims – turn away from problems related to the (hardened) treatment of offenders. Victim-offender conversations are to be respected and to be continued, but they cannot be seen as a restorative justice practice.

Due to immigration the Dutch have made a significant contribution to the development of New Zealand, especially in the field of juvenile justice and adoption. As for New Zealand’s Youth Justice Service, the introduction of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act in 1989 has been a landmark in New Zealand’s history of dealing with juvenile delinquency. While it was not designed as a restorative justice system, the current system is tuned towards restorative justice. Until then, New Zealand had a shameful history as far as the handling of juvenile delinquency is concerned. The Maori, whose youngsters were – and still are – overrepresented in juvenile statistics, heavily criticized this model, emphasizing the need to strengthen the bond between the (extended) family and the juvenile offender, as well as the need to provide for redress. In the same period, the United Nations Convention on Children’s Rights (UNCROC) was introduced (1989), the Act of 1989 paying tribute to the UNCROC. As the national juvenile justice system to some extent does not live up to the standards of the UNCROC, there remains room for improvement. However, black clouds gather over New Zealand’s juvenile justice system, for the present government has announced to be in favor of a punitive oriented policy; there is a call to get ‘tough on juvenile crime’. This policy, however, implies setting back the clock and endangers the current orientation on restorative justice, as well as the legal values set out by the UNCROC.

In this article the author summarizes the main arguments for and notions of a maximalist conception of restorative justice, as developed in his latest book: Restorative Justice, Self-interest and Responsible Citizenship.While using a rather limited, goal-oriented definition of RJ as ‘an option for doing justice after the occurrence of an offence that is primarily oriented towards repairing the individual, relational and social harm caused by that offence’, Walgrave aims at developing a full blown alternative for penal justice. In the restorative system it should also be possible to impose sanctions, when deliberative processes of mediation and conferencing are not feasible, although the latter have, of course, the greatest chance of achieving restoration.The sanctions of restorative justice are not punishments, because any intention to impose suffering is lacking at the side of the sentencing authorities. But RJ can be seen as a form of inverted retributivism, in the sense that the offender pays his dues back to the victim and the society, to a degree that has to be acceptable to all involved, and seeking a fair amount of proportionality that does not impose unrealistic or unfair obligations. Principles of due process of law should be adapted to fit the restorative process. The high degree of participation in restorative justice serves democracy and so should criminology, by studying the ways in which social capital can be increased.The concept of ‘common self-interest’ is explained as the fundamental understanding that self-interests are best served by serving the common self-interest in as far as that provides full possibilities of deployment to everyone.